Scottish immigrant and Law Professor, Judge James Wilson (Sept. 14, 1742 – Aug. 21, 1798), was one of America’s most influential founders who helped shape the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution. One of only six who signed both, he was “widely regarded in his time as the most learned lawyer in a nation full of them.”[1] But has since been forgotten, overshadowed by his famous peers and asterisked as an historical afterthought. In 1768, he was among the first to argue for independence. He served two terms in the Continental Congress where he aided in drafting the Declaration of Independence and later, representing Pennsylvania, signed the document. After the American Revolution, Wilson was one of the major framers of the U. S. Constitution. He crafted the articles on the Executive and Legislative branches and became one of six who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.[2] A strong advocate of citizen rights, the Constitution’s opening remark, “We the People,” bears Wilson’s influence.
Wilson became one of the original United States Supreme Court justices, appointed by President George Washington on September 24, 1789.[3] In 1790, he founded the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Law School and tutored President Washington and his cabinet on federal law. After investing heavily in land speculation, at one time owning a million acres, his finances collapsed. He was sentenced to debtor’s prison and while free on bail, fled to North Carolina to avoid additional creditors. While a refuge, Wilson fell ill at age 55 and died shortly after. He was buried in North Carolina whereas in 1906, he was reinterred in his home town of Philadelphia – the final chapter on a remarkable life.
Wilson, more than any other delegate, consistently advocated placing as much power as was feasible with the people themselves—Wilson alone, who wielded formidable intellect on behalf of democracy throughout the Constitution Convention, is a major part of the reason why the Constitution ended up as democratic a document as it did.
Historian Nicholas Pederson
Early Life and Immigration to America
James Wilson was born on a farm in Fife, eastern Scotland, on September 14, 1742. He was the fourth of eight children of William Robert Covill Wilson (1693-1758) and Alison Landals (1707-1790). Intelligent and ambitious, at age fifteen, he transcended his humble origins as farmer and earned a scholarship to study at the University of St. Andrews, Glasgow; preparing for the Presbyterian ministry. Sources are unclear how many years Wilson studied at St. Andrews before he had to withdraw due to family finances. His father died a year after attending, putting pressure on Wilson to aid in support of the family. He earned a living tutoring members of wealthy estates while learning merchant accounting; a decision to apply himself to the secular world rather than the church.
In 1765, at age twenty-three, Wilson followed many of his countrymen and immigrated to America. With established teaching credentials, he found employment as a tutor at the College of Philadelphia (renamed the University of Pennsylvania in 1791). In 1766, while a tutor at the college, he was awarded an honorary M.A. whereas he spent the next year studying law with John Dickinson. He soon after began to practice law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Always ambitious, he enhanced his career by expanding his law practice to Reading and as far as Annapolis, Maryland.
When Wilson arrived in America, the region had erupted in turmoil with the passing of the Stamp Act (March 22, 1765), one of various Acts levied on the colonies to help pay for the previous Seven Years War (1756-1763, also known at French and Indian War). The Stamp Act was withdrawn a year later on March 18th; however, the damage was done and a patriotic fervor questioning England’s legality to rule was ignited. Wilson’s Scottish schooling aligned with this movement. He had been deeply influenced by the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, such as Thomas Reid, Francis Hutcheson, and Adam Smith, who stressed human beings’ benevolent nature and intuitive capacities. He believed that the common people could intuit self-evident truths about the world through their common sense and experience. Something he would maintain throughout his life, he developed a confidence in ordinary people’s capacities; to tell right from wrong, to render judgments, and, ultimately, to engage in a democratic self-government.[4]
In 1768, Wilson’s was the first cogent argument formulated against the authority of the Crown when he argued that “All men are, by nature, equal and free: no one has a right to any authority over another without his consent: all lawful government is founded on the consent of those who are subject to it.”[5] His stance had basically struck down Britain’s absolute right to govern. He continued to press that England’s legislative authority to pass laws rested solely with the consent of those governed. In effect, all power was derived from the people; a view he would carry throughout his life, impacting his major role in later forging of a new United States Government
On November 5, 1771, he married Rachel Bird, the wealthy daughter of William Bird and Bridget Hulings. They had six children together, all surviving to adulthood: Mary, William, Bird, James, Emily, and Charles. The first three were born in Carlisle and the last three in Philadelphia after Wilson moved his family there in 1778, whereupon he joined the Philadelphia bar. Wilson’s marriage into money offered him the means to actively advance his career in law and investments, whereas he enhanced his financial standing. In December 1772, Wilson bought a 278–acre farm. Three years later he bought a 173–acre farm. For the next several years, he continued to invest in land opportunities and speculation.
American Revolution
There is a young Gentleman from Pennsylvania whose Name is Wilson, whose Fortitude, Rectitude, and Abilities too, greatly outshine his Masters.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 23, 1775
Wilson was a staunch defender of a person’s right to self-govern. In 1774 he penned the pamphlet Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, which outlined a person’s choice to be governed and thereby negating England’s stated right to do so. Wilson’s erudite defense of colonial rights to form their own assemblies and draft laws gained him popular notice and propelled him among patriot influencers. That same year he was elected to Cumberland County’s Committee of Safety[6] and was that county’s representative to the first provincial convention.
At the start of the war, in 1775, Wilson organized and was commissioned colonel of the Pennsylvania 4th Cumberland County Militia Battalion.[7] While Wilson served in the Continental Congress, his regiment was assigned to the state’s ‘flying corps;’ a status similar to New England minutemen. He later was commissioned a brigadier general, holding the commission as the Director-General of the Pennsylvania State Militia, a position he maintained until war’s end.[8] He later accepted a position as advocate general for France in America (1779-1783) that dealt with commercial and maritime matters. So too, beginning in 1776, he served on the Committee on Spies along with Adams, Jefferson, John Rutledge, and Robert R. Lovingston.
Second Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence
Wilson was elected by the Pennsylvania Assemble and chosen as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, serving from 1775-1777. [9] He was present during the formation and debates that led to the Declaration of Independence from England. Though the draft of the Declaration was mainly credited to patriot firebrands John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and the scholarly pen of Thomas Jefferson,[10] Wilson’s handprint is found throughout the document. The opening remarks illustrate Wilson’s citizen rights principals “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” and “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Early historians questioned his support of the Declaration, pointing to the fact that his signature was one of the last to be affixed to the final document. But Wilson had been a strong advocate of the document. However, the Pennsylvania Legislature ruled that its delegates could not vote for independence without state approval. True to his belief that the people, and not their representative was to decide the issue, he argued it was his duty to follow the wishes of his constituents. Only receiving positive feedback and state approval, did he vote for independence.
Pennsylvania State Constitution and Public Support for Wilson Wains
Wilson and the others have Rendered themselves obnoxious to Every Whig in town, and Every Day of the Existence are losing the Confidence of the people.
Robert Whitehill[11] to Various Friends, Philadelphia, June 10, 1776
During debate on the Declaration of Independence, the Second Congress pressed colonial assemblies to form their own state constitutions. Benjamin Franklin took the lead for Pennsylvania, chosen as president of the committee to draft the state’s document. After the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the ‘radicals’ of the patriot movement, those who favored a complete split from England, gained the upper hand over the more conservative position that still sought a reconciliation with Britain. In June, 1776, the same month Congress called for colonies to adopt constitutions, the committees called a state convention which met on July 15, 1776.
The goal of this new constitution was not only to limit, but to completely prevent the creation of an aristocracy. Two sides quickly emerged, labeled Constitutionalists and Republicans, and faced off during state convention debates. The Constitutionalists pressed the document to include a weak executive branch and to be limited to one legislature, believing an upper house would possibly create an elite body of privileged landowners. To that end, the lower classes were granted more power. Suffrage was broadened to include any free male of twenty-one or older who paid taxes, no matter how small. Republicans, that included Wilson and many wealthy founders and leading politicians, favored a two-house legislature, a suffrage restricted to adult male property owners, and a strong executive branch with legislative veto power. The radical Constitutionalists ultimately won the day.
The new state constitution was adopted on September 28, 1776, without Wilson’s vote or support, nor some of the leading citizens that included John Dickinson, Robert Morris, and Frederick Muhlenberg. Wilson’s decision not to endorse the new constitution eroded his standing among the more fervent patriots, viewing him with suspicion and perceived ambivalence toward American independence. He was branded an out-of-touch elitist who could be arrogant and tone deaf, something he was never able to live down. Wilson’s political endorsements had been eroded and he lost his bid to continue as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress past 1777.
The Declaration of Independence meant more to Wilson than to any other American. It became the cornerstone of his constitutional vision and the vehicle through which he channeled his enthusiasm for popular sovereignty and his attendant belief in human sociability and solidarity.
Jonathan Gienapp
Returns to Practice Law and Speculates in Land
After Congress, Wilson returned to his law practice and began to multiply his business interests while accelerating land speculation. He became involved with the Illinois-Wabash Company that purchased large tracts of land from Native Americans in the Illinois wilderness. In 1780, Wilson was chosen as president. His pursuit of speculation intensified whereas he became the company’s largest single investor, owning one and a half shares outright and two shares by proxy, totaling over 1,000,000 acres. These purchases were based on a mistaken belief that an English judge’s opinion was in fact law,[12] allowing private purchases of Native Lands. After the war and Virginia assumed control over the Northwest Territory that included the Illinois region, the new U.S. government threw out the previous opinion and eventually nullified all the company’s purchases, leaving many investors, including Wilson, toward financial ruin.
Fort Wilson Riot, October 4, 1779
By January, 1779, the American Revolution was bankrupting communities. Inflation was rampant with increasing prices of flour, wood, and grain. The bulk of Pennsylvania’s Conventionalist movement who framed the state Constitution in 1776, working class, farmers, and militia families, bore the financial and military burdens of the war. They looked with disdain upon the wealthy landowners and merchant class in Philadelphia, now labeled the Republican Society, for their lack of war service and impervious and insensitive view of those struggling to make ends meet. The Republicans included Wilson, Robert Morris, and other leading Philadelphia politicians who benefitted financially from free trade and inflationary prices on such necessities.
When the Constitutionalists in the Pennsylvania Assembly demanded that price controls be imposed to stem inflation, the Republicans resisted. By late summer, 1779, The Philadelphia Committee of Privates, a more militant organization of representatives from local militias and the working class created in 1775, re-emerged to secure price regulations and remedy other perceived acts of injustice by profiteers and especially Tories. By the fall of 1779, the situation became a powder keg ready to blow. True to his belief of equality and an individual’s rights as framed by the law, Wilson did not approve of the prosecution or persecution of colonists who remained loyal to the Crown. After the British departed from Philadelphia in the summer of 1778, Wilson opposed Pennsylvania’s attempt to seize the property of Philadelphia Loyalists and exile them from the state. His defense of twenty-three ‘inimicals’ was considered the last straw by working class Constitutionalists.
That Mr. Wilson is not a favorite in the State, is a matter which I presume, he is fully sensible of.
Thomas Paine of Common Sense, September 16, 1779
On Monday, October 4, 1779, a large number of militiamen gathered at Burns Tavern on Tenth Street between Race and Vine Streets to take action against any man associated with profiteering and sympathetic to the British. It was headed by Captain Ephraim Faulkner. Charles Wilson Peale, author of the popular pamphlet Common Sense and Wilson advisory, was present as supporter of the working class. When what morphed into a mob marched through the street crying “Get Wilson,” Peale reportedly tried to persuade the militia to abandon the plan. Meanwhile, the mob captured four prominent Republicans and prodded them along the streets in humiliation. Other Republicans got wind of the militia’s actions and thirty-five gathered at Wilson’s home where they armed and barricaded themselves inside. Once militiamen reached Wilson’s home, fellow Republican Captain Robert Campbell opened a window and confronted the crowd. Sources differ if he shouted for them to carry on or fired a pistol.
As a result, the militiamen stormed the doors and set fire to the first floor. Shots were fired, killing Campbell before the militiamen were turned away by the men inside. Joseph Reed,[13] President of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, arrived with the First Troop Philadelphia City Light Horse and a detachment from Baylor’s 3rd Continental Light Dragoons which ended the attack. But not before four militiamen, one free Black youth (who joined the militia’s march), and Captain Campbell lay dead. Fourteen militia and three men from inside the house were wounded. Wilson fled the city temporarily while several militiamen were arrested which only increased the tension. The Pennsylvania Assembly acted quickly to quell the tension between the classes through legislation that provided flour to the families of the militia and re-emphasized the enforcement of the laws pertaining to military service.[14] In March 1780, the Executive Council passed an act pardoning all involved in the attack on Fort Wilson. For Wilson, this only further alienated him from many Philadelphians; however, did not prevent him from later returning to serve once more in the Continental Congress.[15]
Bank of North America and Returns to Congress
Be sure to press Mr. Wilson to return to the Assembly. He is a worthy and capable Man, and fully justifies the Character you gave him to me the first Time I saw him.
William Churchill Houston[16] to Robert Morris, Philadelphia, October 4, 1779
In July 1780, Wilson acted as legal adviser to Robert Morris[17] when they formed the Bank of North America. This bank was chartered by the Congress and functioned successfully until 1785 when its legality was challenged by the Bank of Pennsylvania. In opposition to the challenge and a vigorous defense of the bank’s constitionality, Wilson published his Considerations on the Power to Incorporate the Bank of North America. In March, 1785, Wilson lost his bid and the state legislature temporarily revoked its charter. But the bank was reformed and carried on as The Bank of North America, the first bank in the modern sense in the United States, issuing its own notes and providing facilities for raising loans.[18]
When the conservatives came to power again in 1782, Wilson was once more elected to Congress and served intermittently until 1787. The next stage of his life, forming the U.S. Constitution, is considered his most important contribution as politician. But while performing this duty, his wife Rachel of fifteen years died in 1786, leaving him to finish raising his six children.
U.S. Constitution
By 1787, the Founders had been well aware that the nation’s governing document, Articles of Confederation, adopted November 15, 1777, wa to be replaced with a stronger, more defined Constitution. A Constitution Convention was convened on May 25, 1787 in which the structure and articles were debated and framed. It ended on September 17, 1787 with the signature of representing state delegates. Wilson’s role as one of if not the nation’s leading opinion on law became crucial to the formation of the United States Constitution. William Pierce[19] wrote in his 1787 Character Sketches of Delegates to the Federal Convention that “Mr. Wilson ranks among the foremost in legal and political knowledge. He has joined to a fine genius all that can set him off and show him to advantage…No man is more clear, copious, and comprehensive than Mr. Wilson…He draws the attention not by the charm of his eloquence, but by the force of his reasoning…”
Arguably none of the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention had a greater influence on the document that remains fundamental to Americans to this day. Both through the debates on the Convention floor and behind the scenes as a key member of the most important drafting committee, Wilson helped shape all three branches of government and the system of federalism that distributed power between the national and state governments.[20] Wilson’s contributions to the birth of the United States have been largely overshadowed by those of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Second in influence only to James Madison, it was Wilson who shaped the draft for the Constitution’s executive and especially the legislative branch. He also championed what was to become the House of Representatives and Madison revealed in his notes, released in 1840 after his death: “Mr. Wilson contended strenuously for drawing the most numerous branches of the legislature (i.e. the House of Representatives) immediately from the people.”
Wilson supported the direct popular vote in presidential elections over the electoral college. When the framers would not go for a popular vote, only then did he propose what became the Electoral College. Emancipation was gaining support in the north, though slavery remained deeply imbedded in the south. The delegates were sharply separated on the matter. Wilson came up with the Three-Fifths Compromise; whereas enslaved population counted as 3/5 a person for a state’s congressional representation. This gained support of the southern states and cleared the way for the constitution’s ratification.[21] Perhaps Wilson’s greatest life moment, the Constitutional Convention defined his contribution to a free people. Charles Goodrich wrote in his 1834 biography of Wilson that “He possessed great political sagacity and foresight, and being a fluent speaker, he did much to settle upon just principles the great and important points which naturally arose in the formation of a new government.”
Supreme Court and Law Professor
Immediately after ratification, the College of Philadelphia employed James Wilson to give a series of lectures explaining and analyzing the Constitution, placing it in its context in the theory of government and politics, and grounded on theology and psychology. In 1789, Wilson was chosen as a presidential elector to nominate George Washington for President. That same year he was also a state delegate for the Pennsylvania State Convention and principal author of the new State Constitution. Not too different from the 1776 Constitution he did not support, it included a governor with limited veto power, a bicameral legislature, and an independent judiciary. He also wrote to President Washington asking him for the position of Chief Justice of the first appointed Supreme Court.
But Wilson, considered an elite Republican, did not have a broad support of the general public nor fellow founders. Many questioned his position as campion of equal government. On May 17, 1789, John Adams wrote to Benjamin Rush that “Mr. Wilson, I have long known esteemed and respected: but, if I had a Vote, I could not promise to give it for him to be Chief Justice.” Washington followed through, but after selecting the first six Justices, he added Wilson as an additional Associate Justice on October 5, 1789. Adams and others had put their support behind John Jay who ultimately obtained the coveted title Chief Justice. In 1790, Wilson received an honorary LL.D. degree from the College of Philadelphia and became its first professor of law; establishing the prestigious and groundbreaking University of Pennsylvania School of Law, present day Carey Law School named in November, 2019. Some of his early students were Washington and many of his cabinet.
Later Life
Prior to the Constitution Convention, Rachel had died in 1786, leaving him six children. He had become very active in finances, obtaining a handsome salary as Supreme Court Justice, law professor, and fervently investing in land speculation. On June 10, 1793, the Boston Federal Gazette wrote “This idea [equal government] comes with an ill grace from a man, who parades our streets with a coach and four horses, when it is known his exorbitant salary enables him to make this flashy parade, and the money is taken from the pockets of the industrious part of the community…to live in a style vastly superior to any member in the society that supports him?” [22] Financially secure and seemingly at the appendix of his career, while on circuit court assignment in Boston, Wilson’s life changed. John Quincy Adams wrote to his brother that Wilson had been “smitten at meeting with a first sight love…”[23]
Wilson had been taken aback by eighteen year old Hannah Gray while attending church at Dr. Thatcher’s meeting; an auburn-haired beauty from a well-connected Boston family, daughter of Ellis Gray and Sarah Dolbeare. Ten days later, before departing for Newport, RI to hold court, Wilson proposed marriage to which Hannah accepted. The public seem bemused by the union of, as John Quincy Adams called a deity and modern beauty, with a fifty-one year old Wilson, “stiff and stodgy, with a round face and glasses that were frequently slipping down his nose.”[24] They concluded the young woman had been swayed by the judge’s wealth and “very handsome chariot and four” in which he had arrived at her family’s house to court her.[25]
Although describing himself as a friend of Hannah’s, Adams questioned Hannah’s intentions when he wrote scornfully, “Cupid himself must laugh at his own absurdity, in producing such an Union… to render the man ridiculous & the woman contemptible.” Yet, three years later, when Wilson’s shaky finances came crashing down around him, launching an ignominious decline that landed him—while still a sitting Supreme Court justice—in debtor’s prison, Hannah confounded those scornful Boston gossips. Braving poverty and disgrace, she stood staunchly by her husband’s side.[26]
Debt and Death
After the war, the government had been persuaded by Virginia’s claims to the Illinois territory. Though stretched out in the courts, the new nation was not to accept opinions in English law prior to the war. It meant much of Wilson’s earlier holdings were ultimately worthless. Additional financial pressure was levied by many of his investments requiring regular timely payments. On top of his elaborate lifestyle, this stretched Wilson’s finances and left it more difficult to meet deadlines to creditors. Another nail in the financial coffin for Wilson was his association with Holland immigrant Theophilus Cazenove. An associate of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, the extravagant Cazenove managed large scales of client’s investments in land and products such as maple syrup. However, his dealings were lucrative at best, having been described by Alexander Baring[27] as a “sad dirty fellow and does all the mischief he can.” Cazenove lost his clients large sums of money including Wilson’s investments in western Pennsylvania. The Panic of 1796-1797[28] did not help Wilson’s predicament and soon after, he was deeply in debt.
Wilson’s financial distractions began to wear on his teaching. A student, Samuel Sitgreaves, wrote that he had grown “rare, distant and reserved…almost useless.”[29] By the summer of 1796, the American economy was in full-blown crisis after the bubble burst in land values, upending credit markets and causing a national panic. Wilson and other major speculators like Robert Morris, who had been the wealthiest man in America, began to default on their loans. That year Edward Burd, elite Philadelphia lawyer, wrote to Supreme Court Associate Judge Jasper Yeates that “Ruin is staring in the faces of most land speculators…The day of reckoning is at hand, and no prospect of disposing of their lands. There are a great number of judgments against your friend Wilson lately confessed by him. People speak very freely as to the situation he is likely to be in very shortly…”[30]
Wilson was absent from the Supreme Court during the fall of 1796. According to Robert Morris, Wilson was arrested briefly for debt writing on December 8th, “Judge Wilson was taken by the Sheriff last night. It will be my turn next. I am seriously uneasy for Wilson’s affair will make the Vultures more keen after me.”[31] James Gibson wrote to his friend Pierce Butler, a creditor to whom Wilson owed more than two hundred thousand dollars, “The prospect before him is very gloomy. It is impossible at present to foretell the final issue.” Early 1797 he began to miss court proceedings that had to be cancelled. By August, Wilson was no longer in his seat. He fled to Burlington, New Jersey where his creditors caught up to him.
On September 6, 1797, Wilson wrote to his twenty year old son Rev. Bird Wilson from behind bars. He asked for $600 bail, shirt & stockings, and travel money. His son came forward and Wilson returned to Philadelphia. He did not remain long. He requested the southern circuit-riding assignments, a position the other judges avoided due to its most arduous journey. He hoped to avoid his creditors to remain out of jail and to accrue some cash from his Carolina and Georgia land investments.
Wilson had escaped to Edenton, North Carolina, where he sought sanction at the home of friend and fellow Supreme Court Justice James Iredell. He continually wrote to his son Bird asking him for news and money. His creditors continued to hound Wilson for payment on land he had since mortgaged to the hilt. Thomas Blount, a North Carolina lawmaker and landowner, wrote to his brother John. “He [Wilson] has no real estate anywhere that is not encumbered with at least one mortgage, & if you rely on his honor, or trust him in any thing, he will certainly deceive you. Let him go to gaol.” By May Wilson wrote to his lawyer Jospeh Thomas, “I have been hunted—I may be hunted—like a wild beast…with an avidity cruel, treacherous and insatiable.”[32]
By August, with a writ of debt hanging over his head and facing incarceration, Wilson fell ill with Malaria. Weakened, he died of a stroke on August 21, 1798, age fifty-five from malaria. He was buried nearby in the Johnston Cemetery near Hayes Plantation. His wife Hannah remained by his side and afterwards returned home to Boston with their two year old son Henry who died the next year, age three. On February 4, 1802, she married wealthy druggist Dr. Thomas Bartlett. The union would have one child Caroline who lived to adulthood. Hannah would die six years later, March 14, 1808, age thirty-two. Unpopular among many Pennsylvanians, there was no effort to return Wilson’s remains to Philadelphia. In 1906, under the direction of President Theodore Roosevelt, the remains of Wilson were disinterred from North Carolina and conveyed to Philadelphia. In an elaborate and formal ceremony attended by Supreme Court Justices and State and national politicians, Wilson’s casket was carried to Christ Church and buried next to his Pennsylvania colleague, Benjamin Franklin.
Legacy
Wilson bestowed a legacy worth remembering. As much as anybody of his generation, Wilson gave voice to the central idea announced in the Declaration of Independence; that Americans were “one people” who had formed a single indivisible nation; no matter how different its various states and peoples.
Jonathan Gienapp
Why Wilson was not propelled to the apex of the American idolization of our nation’s founders? To be shuffled among historical collections long forgotten or rarely read? Somewhat of a paradox, his support that championed law equality and the rights and representation of individuals, the backbone of a free and democratic government, to the average American, was clouded by his opulent and lavish lifestyle and attitudes shared by many wealthy, and pompous landholding conservatives of his generation. He was never able to bridge that gap, falling into the abyss of obscurity. So too, after the American Revolution and Constitution, Wilson failed to have a lasting impact. He fell prey to financial speculation and became mired in debt. Rather than shaping the early Supreme Court as many predicted, his tenure was cut short when he died on the run from his creditors. After death, Pennsylvanians had no desire to have his remains brought back and were content to leave his body to be forgotten in North Carolina.
Dr. Benjamin Rush, Congressional delegate and signer of the Declaration of Independence, best sums Judge James Wilson achievements when in 1800 he wrote: “An eminent lawyer and a great and enlightened statesman. He spoke often in Congress, and his eloquence was of the most commanding kind. His mind, while he spoke, was one blaze of light. Not a word ever fell from his lips out of time, or out of place, nor could a word be taken from or added to his speeches without injuring them. He rendered great and essential services to his country, in every stage of the Revolution.”[34]
TO READ MORE, WE RECOMMEND THE FOLLOWING BOOKS:
OF SIMILAR INTEREST ON REVOLUTIONARY WAR JOURNAL
SOURCE
Alexander, Lucien Hugh. “James Wilson, Patriot, and the Wilson Doctrine.” The North American Review. Mid-November Issue, Vol. 183, No. 8 (Mid-November 1906).
Garrison, Maynard. Decedents of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. “James Wilson.”
Gienapp, Jonathan. “New Light on the Declaration and its Signers.” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. History Now: The Journal, Issue 64 (Fall 2022).
Goodrich, Charles A. Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. 1834: Published by Thomas Mather, Boston, Massachusetts.
Kaminski, John P, Editor. The Founders on the Founders, Word Portraits from the American Revolutionary Era. 2008: Univ. of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA.
National Constitution Center. “James Wilson 1742-1798.”
Reader, David. “Fort Wilson.” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. 2014: Rutgers University.
“Remembering Founding Father James Wilson, Law School founder, on Constitution Day” September 17, 2021. Penn Carey Law, Univ. of Penn.
Penn Libraries University of Pennsylvania. “Penn People – James Wilson, 1742-1798.”
Wegman, Jesse. “The Supreme Court Justice Who Ended Up Behind Bars.” June 8, 2026. Brennan Center for Justice.
ENDNOTES
[1] Gienapp.
[2] Of the six who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, four were delegates from Pennsylvania: of Pennsylvania were James Wilson, Benjamin Franklin, George Clymer, Robert Morris, with Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and George Read of Delaware.
[3] The six Supreme Court Justices nominated to the first court by President George Washington were: James Wilson, Chief Justice John Jay, John Rutledge, William Cushing, John Blair Jr., and Robert H. Harrison.
[4] Gienapp.
[5] Wilson later formally stated this in his 1774 pamphlet Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament.
[6] Committees of Safety were the military preparedness branch of Committees of Correspondence, patriot coalitions among colonial regions formed to organize resistance to English rule.
[7] The 4th Cumberland County Militia Regiment was latter commanded by Colonel Samuel Lyon (1777) and Lt. Col. Samuel Culbertson (1780).
[8] Alexander, pg. 3.
[9] Wilson was not among the first eight delegates of Pennsylvania chosen to represent the Second Continental Congress in May, 1775, but was added as an additional delegate later that month – among the nine delegates who would later sign the document. The other delegates included George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, Robert Morris, George Ross, Benjamin Rush, James Smith, and George Taylor.
[10] The draft of the Declaration of Independence was assigned to Congressional Delegates John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert Livingston of New York; comprising the Committee of Five. Jefferson was the only southern delegate of the five.
[11] Patriot, State Assemblyman from Cumberland County and delegate of the State Constitution Convention 1776.
[12] Camden-Yorke (also Pratt-Yorke) Opinion of 1757.
[13] Joseph Reed served as George Washington’s Adjunct General during the Revolutionary War, before retiring in 1777.
[14] Some sources state Wilson posted a 10,000 bond for those accused.
[15] Reader.
[16] Houston represented New Jersey in the Continental Congress from 1779-1781.
[17] Robert Morris was considered one of if not the wealthiest man in America. A merchant and Philadelphia financier, as “Financier of the American Revolution,” he helped bankroll the war and often came to the country’s financial aid. He was a member of the Continental Congress and signee of the Declaration of Independence. Later, in the new U.S. government, he represented Pennsylvania in the Senate. In near financial ruin after the 1796-97 Panic, he weathered the storm to maintain his position in society and politics.
[18] Garrison.
[19] William Pierce of Georgia was an officer in the American Revolution, member of the Continental Congress, and a delegate to the Constitution Convention.
[20] Gienapp.
[21] “Remembering Founding Father . Wilson…”, Pen Carey Law.
[22] Kaminski, pg. 533.
[23] Wexler.
[24] John Quincy Adams in a letter to his brother, Wexler.
[25] Wexler.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Alexander Baring was by the late 1700’s one of the world’s most powerful financiers.
[28] When Pennsylvania’s influential leader prior to and after the American Revolution, Robert Morris defaulted on his credited notes, hundreds of businesses failed, setting off the Panic of 1796-1797.
[29] Wegman.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid.
[34] Kaminski, pg. 535.